“Want anything to drink?”
I final y find my voice. “No. Thanks.”
She eyes me under a fringe of bangs. “So what are you to Frey?”
“What are you to Sarah?”
“Sister.”
“Friend.”
“Wel, at least one of us is tel ing the truth.”
I sit up a little straighter. “I’m tel ing the truth, too. Frey and I are friends.”
“A friend that he wishes was the mother of his child.”
So she heard that. “He didn’t mean it.” Did he? Of course he didn’t. I’m vampire.
“Wel, he said it.” Mary fixes me with a penetrating stare.
“Are you real y a vampire?”
She heard that, too. “Yes.”
“Cool.”
My turn to stare. “You’re not repulsed like Sarah?”
“Shit, no. Sarah is being overprotective.”
“Seems more like paranoid.”
Mary shrugs. “She has her reasons. But if Frey trusts you, I do, too.”
I look around. The area is beautiful, true, but it’s lonely. Too lonely for the average—
“How old are you?” I ask.
“Nineteen.”
“And you live here?”
It comes out far more disparagingly than I mean it to. I backtrack quickly. “It’s just you are so young and—”
Mary laughs and brushes the air with a hand. “It’s okay. No.
I don’t live here year round. I attend col ege in Phoenix. I’m here for the summer. Helping Sarah with John-John and as she likes to put it, reconnecting with my roots. I won’t stay here after I graduate, though. The atmosphere on the rez is too claustrophobic.”
“But it isn’t for Sarah?”
“Not since she had John-John. It’s like she feels safe here.”
“Safe? From what?”
For the first time, Mary’s expression becomes guarded.
Her shoulders draw up a little, her posture stiffens. “You should ask her.”
I don’t want to risk Mary shutting down. I scour my brain for something to get us back on the friendly track we were before. A whiff of horse drifts up from the corral. “I noticed you have horses. You ride a lot?”
Mary’s shoulders relax. “Yes. It’s one of the reasons I don’t mind spending summers here. Do you ride?”
“Me?” I laugh. “No. Never been on a horse.”
“Wel, we’l have to remedy that. I’l take you out this afternoon if you’d like.”
We’l have to see what the horse says about that. The last time I was close to a horse, it shied away from me with a baring of teeth and flattening of ears. I think it sensed the beast. But I don’t want to cal attention to that side of my nature, so I pause to compose a noncommittal reply. Before I come up with anything, the door opens behind us.
Sarah is back.
CHAPTER 19
SARAH DOESN’T LOOK PARTICULARLY HAPPY TO SEE me sitting on her porch, even less happy to see me chatting up her little sister like we’re a couple of school chums. But surprisingly, she doesn’t lash out. She has car keys ain for sor hand. When she speaks it’s with a decidedly resigned air.
“Mary, you and I are going up to the lodge.”
Mary raises her eyebrows. “John-John?”
“He’s staying.” She has pointedly refrained from looking at me. Now she does. “Frey says I can trust you. He’d better be right.”
She doesn’t wait for me to spout reassurances. She tromps down the porch steps and heads for the truck. Mary gives me a thumbs-up and fol ows.
Sarah pul s away, her grim face pointed straight ahead, both hands gripping the wheel. I half expect the truck to come roaring back and Sarah to wave a wreath of garlic and a stake at me so I wait until even the dust from their abrupt departure has dissipated before figuring it’s safe to go inside.
The house is cool and dark. The front door opens to a living area painted stark white. The wal s are hung with blankets of intricate design woven in primary colors — red, blue, green, yel ow. The furniture is leather, big, built more for comfort than style, kid scuffed. A couch and two overstuffed side chairs cluster around a rectangular table that looks homemade. It’s wood, juniper maybe, and polished to a high sheen. Coloring books and crayons and children’s games and books are scattered over its surface. In the corner, a loom with a half-finished blanket. The pattern is diamond shaped, strands of yarn trailing to the floor.
In my mind’s eye I picture Sarah weaving while John-John colors close by.
It’s an image that invokes a strange heaviness in my chest.
A lovely image.
A hint of sandalwood mingles with the aroma of freshly baked bread and the earthy smel s of juniper and desert sage.
This is a house that is wel loved — again I feel a pang—
and it’s a house fil ed with people who love each other. Frey may be the kid’s father, but we are intruders.
Maybe I shouldn’t have brought Frey. I could have come alone. Made sure his son was safe and found the shaman on my own. Chael knew the location.
Why do I always drag Frey into things that threaten his wel — being? I accuse Chael of not doing his homework — I should have done mine. Forced Frey to tel me the story of his son’s birth back when I first learned he had a son. But I was too consumed in my own drama, and now look. .
Should have, could have, would have.
Makes no difference. The damage is done.
From down a short hal, I hear Frey’s quiet voice. He’s talking to John-John. I don’t know whether to join them or not.
Guilt at being the cause of the kid’s sadness makes me want to flee.
Until I hear the giggle.
John-John’s giggle.
I tiptoe toward the sound. There are four doors, two on each side of the hal. The first on the left and right are bedrooms, probably Sarah’s and Mary’s judging from the vanities and flowered wal papers. The third door leads to a bathroom. The last is John-John’s.
Frey is sitting on the edge of the bed, John-John on his lap. They are looking through a picture book. John-John points to a page and Frey recites in English fol owed by John-John in Navajo. When Frey attempts the Navajo translation, it sends John-John into squeals of laughter.
At that momeiv now. It was selfishness on my part to want Frey with me on this journey, but it was selfishness on Sarah’s part to keep him from his son. I’m glad we’re here.
John-John looks up and sees me standing in the doorway.
I start to duck away, but Frey cal s me back.
“Come on in, Anna. John-John is helping me with my Navajo.”
“Are you sure I’m not intruding?”
John-John wiggles off Frey’s lap and comes to the door to grab my hand. “Would you like to learn Navajo?” he asks. “I could teach you.”
At first, I’m unsure whether to let him touch me. But John-John already has my hand in his little fist. He seems not to notice that my hand has no warmth. At least there’s no violent physical reaction the way there was with Sarah. I let him lead me to the bed and hoist him back on Frey’s lap, settling myself next to them. “No, no. I’l just listen to you and your daddy. Wil that be al right?”
He nods and picks up the book and the two of them take up where they left off, John-John’s head bent over the pages and Frey’s arms tight around his son.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been around a four-year-old. I’d forgotten how much warmth their little bodies exude or how they smel of clean earth and talcum powder. I snuggle closer just to share in some of that warmth and breathe more deeply of his scent.
Frey and John-John go back to their lesson. I look around John-John’s room — very much a boy’s room with racing cars and Legos and curtains patterned with gal oping horses. A bookcase has three shelves of books and one of pictures. I see only one of Frey. John-John was stil a babe in arms when it was taken. I recognize where it was taken, here on the front porch. Did Sarah leave Boston when she found out she was pregnant or right after the baby was born? Did Frey know she was returning to the reservation? Or did she leave without a word, forcing him to track them on his own?